


Just Keep Me Company

by Batastic_Grayson



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archangels, Breakfast, Buried Alive, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Claustrophobic Dean Winchester, Comfort, Comforting Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Has Nightmares, Dean Winchester is Not Heterosexual, Domestic, Dreams and Nightmares, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Fear, Husbands, Literal Sleeping Together, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Malak Box, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Michael Possessing Dean Winchester, Morning Cuddles, Night Terrors, Psychological Trauma, Trapped, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23400622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batastic_Grayson/pseuds/Batastic_Grayson
Summary: Dean is suffering from frequent nightmares about being trapped in the Malak box with Michael, and with no end in sight. Cas wants to help, but he doesn't know how beyond talking it out. Sometimes quiet company, breakfast, and a gentle touch are all that's needed to soothe a frightened heart.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 57





	Just Keep Me Company

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: This fic depicts a short nightmare at the beginning featuring claustrophobia and drowning, as well as extreme isolation. If you are normally triggered by exposure to these, I suggest you steer clear. Otherwise, hang tight, and you'll be treated to some sweet domesticity! 
> 
> As always, I don't own SPN or the characters, but I do own this story. Thanks for reading!

_**Dean**_

_It’s the darkness that grinds me down first. It feels like a physical presence surrounding me, and although I’ve never been afraid of the dark before, I am now. I can feel its fingertips crawling up my arms, firming themselves over my eyes, molding to my skin like ink. I work for calm, despite this, and I shift slightly. My shoulders make nearly immediate contact with metal partitions on my right and left, sealing me in, and something like terror grips my ribcage abruptly._

_Okay, come on, Dean. You’ve done this before, right? You’ve been trapped before. Slow, easy breaths. Try not to struggle too much—you’ll only feel more boxed in. Mind over matter, buddy. Mind over matter._

_The metal groans around me like it’s weary, and I’m reminded of why I’m inside this box in the first place. The expanse of water waiting on the other side, a hair’s breadth away from slivering through the cracks, sends a frightened shudder of air past my gritted teeth. I can feel my limbs starting to tremble without my permission, and I’m experienced enough to know that I’m losing it._

_The draw of my breath in tiny, panicked wisps accelerates until it’s like a drumbeat in my ears, thrumming, thrumming, thrumming in time with the pounding inside my skull. I’m shaking violently now, and my hands have started thrashing against the coffin’s ceiling, clawing for purchase, for escape. A terrible moaning cry rends the air, and I recognize it as a desperate sob escaping from my gut, but I can’t stop it. I can’t stop anything._

_I struggle futilely for minutes, hours it seems, until my limbs are weak with fatigue and my hands are slicked with blood from clawing at metal seams. The box creaks around me, and I can feel the barest amount of water starting to pool beneath my back. It’s ice cold, frigid and unyielding, and I know it means that somewhere in here, there’s a small fissure into the ocean beyond._

_The reality of my imminent eternity spent drowning renews my vigor, and I start hammering against the box again. I scream until I’m hoarse, until my fingertips are split and torn, until I’ve got nothing left in me. When my body fails me, and it does, I lay back in the few inches of water, and I weep. I weep and I beg for saving like I never have before. It’s a harrowing sound, even to me. Prayers, spoken in half-mumbled, broken tones, the sounds of water moaning and pushing on all sides. Small, feeble breaths echoing back against cool, unfeeling metal. And then? Utter, complete silence in answer._

_It’s a prayer of the damned._

_I don’t think anyone hears it._

It’s not the first time I’ve had a nightmare in which I’m trapped in the box with Michael, but I never know what to expect when I do finally emerge from the dream. Sometimes I wake up numb, unable to feel anything but mild hunger or exhaustion. Other times, I wake up terrified—shaking, crying—the whole bit. Still others, I wake up angry. I hit something; I feel a bit better.

This time? I sit up with sweat drenching my skin, my limbs trembling like I’ve run a marathon, and I look into my darkened room with grainy eyes. I read the clock on my bedside table, I consider going back to sleep, and then my eyes snag on the photographs lined up on my desk. They’re family photos, a catalogue of the most important people in my life, and I stare at them for about three minutes before my shoulders start to shake. It’s when tears start rolling down my cheeks that I realize I’m crying, and I’m abruptly flattened by a wave of desolation so deep it threatens to end me.

I let it. I haven’t wept, not in real life, in a long time, and it feels overdue. And so, I cry. I curl into a ball, and I hold my knees to my chest, and I cry. I pretend I wasn’t just facing down the worst decision I’ve ever had to make, and it helps. It helps to picture good things instead. Me, Sam, Cass. The three of us laid up on a beach somewhere, sipping martinis and enjoying sun-drenched days.

Gradually, the tears slow. My breath returns to me, and I’m left with the same, familiar exhaustion. But at least it’s something I can control, something I harness. The clock tells me it’s three when I slide from my bed, eyes puffy and throat wrecked from my crying jag, but I feel more balanced. Less like I might tear open with a stiff breeze.

I wander to the kitchen barefoot, not bothering to turn on lights as I go. There’s a strange beauty to the bunker at night, when it’s dead silent and I know we’re all home. Usually, it’s just the four of us—Cas, Sam, Jack, and me. Tonight, Mom’s staying over too. Her presence adds another strand of importance to the stillness tonight, and I’m careful not to disturb the quiet when I flip on a lamp inside the kitchen and head for the coffee pot.

I can feel the tension unraveling from me as the coffee brews, and I amble towards the fridge mindlessly. It isn’t too long before I’ve pulled a carton of eggs from the shelves. I’ve always found cooking sort of…therapeutic. It’s the one thing I’ve always known I was good at, if I’m being honest. Making food, keeping everyone fed and full…it makes everything else, all the other shit we face, feel a bit more manageable. If I can keep everyone fed, then maybe I can face the other stuff too. Or something like that.

Maybe it’s why I find myself bent over, rummaging for a skillet, when my solitude is interrupted by a soft, hesitant, “Dean?”

I know the voice instantly, and I straighten with a skillet in hand, keeping my gaze on the stove. I know what I’ll find waiting for me if I look up—worried, baby blues, coupled with pajamas and tousled hair. I don’t have the strength to lie and tell him I’m okay tonight. And I certainly don’t have the strength to take his concern without unraveling a bit.

“Hey, Cas.”

There’s a pause. I still haven’t looked up, but I can hear the padding of feet closer. It sounds like he’s wearing slippers, which wouldn’t surprise me. He’s always been pretty domestic when given the chance and settling into the bunker these past few years has allowed him the freedom to relax a bit.

When he remains quiet, I lift a shoulder, cracking a few eggs into the pan reflexively. “What are you doing up? I thought you’d be elbow deep in Friends reruns by now.”

He hesitates, takes a step closer. He’s entered my line of sight now, even though I’m looking down at the counter, and I can see that he’s wearing one of my old band t-shirts and pair of sweats. I was right about the slippers.

“I…I sensed your distress earlier.”

I swallow, flipping an egg with a shrug. “Bitch of a dream. No biggie.”

A deep pause only punctuated by the popping of hot grease and the slide of the spatula against metal.

“You called for me. I could feel it.”

I risk a glance up at him, but it isn’t brief enough to escape without him catching my eyes for a moment. He tilts his head, brows furrowing in commiserating, tired pain. My chest clenches painfully. He’s always been good at that—saying things without having to vocalize them. I can feel his worry like a palpable force right now, and it sends my eyes flickering away from him quickly, afraid he’ll see how shaken I truly am. 

I sniff, “Like I said. A doozy.”

His hands flex on the countertop, a nervous tic he’s prone to, and he shifts his weight. “Dean…if it’s about the box again, I could—”

I shake my head, lifting my gaze to his with a frown, “I don’t want to talk about it, Cas. Not now.”

“But I could help you—”

I sigh, and this time an edge of copper weaves its way into my tone, cutting and cruel, “I just don’t want to think about it for a bit, okay? Is that too much to ask? Or are you really gonna sit here and go all Doctor Phil on me?”

Cas draws back a bit, eyes washing out to a pale shade of denim, and I can tell he’s still worried. He might even be a little bit hurt. But he’s Cas, and when I ask him to respect my space…usually he does, even if he hates it.

He nods, inhaling a soft breath as his expression goes gentle and cautious. He extends one of his hands across the counter, brushing fingertips with me in a coaxing gesture that catches me off guard when he says, “What do you need from me then?”

I blink, surprised by my own emotion when I lift a shoulder and stutter out, “I just…I just want to eat my eggs, and drink my coffee, and forget about it. I don’t wanna…think. Not about Michael. Not about eternity spent locked with him. Just—not tonight.”

Cas’ eyes are dove gray now, burdened and understanding—and God I hate how they make me feel vulnerable and protected all at once—and he murmurs, “Alright. Can I keep you company?”

“No therapy talk?”

Cas’ mouth twitches in the ghost of a smile, and his fingers wind with mine as he shakes his head, “No therapy talk.”

I let myself relax into the contact like I never would’ve a few years ago, but so much has changed between us that I don’t even care. We hold hands briefly on the way to the dining room table, both of us carrying mugs of coffee now, and we break apart to sit on opposite sides. We talk about fanciful things—road trips and anecdotes, aspirations and shared memories—and slowly, my mood begins to improve.

I forget about my dream like one does any other—in soft, hazy stages. It’s somewhere between stories and lingering gazes that I realize the heaviness from my nightmare has drifted away in favor of quiet stillness. The soft tick of the clock on the wall, the hum of the fridge behind me, the soft clink of a spoon against a mug. Cas has that effect on me, loathe as I am to admit that someone can subdue me so easily. He makes the world seem less loud, less bright, just…less.

I love him for it, and so much more.

It’s five by the time I feel myself starting to drowse again, and Cas takes note with the quiet care he normally does. He gathers our dishes and steers me to the doorway when he takes my hand in his. We wander back towards my bedroom with a low stillness between us, and it seems perfectly natural to invite him inside when we do stop at my door.

We don’t make love like we might any other night. I think Cas knows I’m not in the mood, because he simply curls up at my back, and drapes an arm over my waist like a protective cuff. The last shred of unease from my nightmare dissolves under that touch, and I allow myself to release the breath I hadn’t known I was holding.

I murmur, already halfway to sleep, “Cas?”

“Hmm?” His voice hums into my back, familiar and soothing. He’s started tracing patterns on my forearm, and the action is only compounding my drowsiness.

“Thank you.”

I could be wrong, but I think I hear his voice smiling when he whispers back, “Anytime.”


End file.
